the mountains say
by ninejs
Summary: "But if you listen closely, you can hear the voices of people you've lost." Or: Tifa contemplates after Aerith's death. —tifa/aerith


**moved 5/6/17. originally written 2/29/16.**

 **for full effect, i recommend listening to "mountains" by message to bears. i listened to that on repeat while i wrote this.**

 **god, i love these two. i should write something actually decent for them lmfao. yall should prompt me for them (pm me, tweet me, message me on tumblr... just do it.)**

* * *

How young, how sad, how tragic, how terribly, terribly, unfortunately realistic. Those are Tifa's thoughts only after accepting it.

Before then, her thoughts had been a mantra of _why Aerith? She never hurt anyone. It's not fair. I loved her so much._ And the thoughts were warranted, but Tifa finds it strange that they replayed in her mind for so long.

Because Tifa has known, for longer than anyone in their whole ragtag group of friends, or at least she thinks so, that death is just a part of life. It comes and it goes, like the waves of the ocean... or, like the sun.

(Her father told her that after her mother died, after he realized that a young Tifa was unable and unwilling to accept it when she took that fateful trip to Mt. Nibel.)

But then, she thinks about _the sun_.

 _Aerith_ is the sun.

Aerith is- _was_ bright and pretty and plucky, and Tifa admired her because Tifa didn't know how else to feel about her. Pretty girls have always scared her because she worries, constantly, that the only thing she has ever known might be pulled from her (even if now, she realizes, she doesn't know Cloud, at least, not anymore, because he is not the same and he won't let her help the way he used to - the way he would let Aerith help if she was here now), but there was something about Aerith that let Tifa know that she didn't _have_ to be so frightened, so unsure and unwilling to let the rays of light hit and tan her skin. (Even if she should have been so frightened because Aerith's pull is magnetizing, but Tifa wouldn't have blamed Cloud, for she, too, was pulled so strongly to Aerith.)

She didn't want to let Aerith go. She stroked her face and waited for an answer, for the green eyes to open up and smile at her the way they always did, and when they didn't, Tifa realized that Aerith wasn't coming back. The lack of life in Aerith's eyes scared her so much that Tifa did the only thing she could do: she ran.

It had been the first time in her life she felt as confused and scared and hurt as she had when her mother passed away.

The thing about her mother, though, is that Tifa could go and put flowers near her resting spot if she felt like it. She could talk to her, could hold some silly conversations, even if they were one-sided, with her. By looking at the nameplate, Tifa still, for some reason, felt connected, even if they were no longer together.

(At one point, Aerith had promised that she would go with Tifa to her mother's grave and put some new, fresh flowers that she grew herself by it. Tifa never forgot about it because it showed how much Aerith cared even if she never knew Tifa's mother. And when Tifa asked, Aerith only replied "because I know she must have been a wonderful woman if she gave us you!" and Tifa, she wanted to cry then, and even more now when she was remembering it.)

Aerith was sinking into the water. That's where they had put her. There is no service of remembrance for her, save for a few silent stares upon the body of the beautiful woman they knew, as Cloud carries her and puts her to rest.

And all of this bothers her because she wants to go back to Aerith's home and get some of the flowers Aerith grew herself and put them next to a grave. She wants to lay next to a nameplate and talk to her, pretend to hear her voice and smell the smell of flowers that always followed Aerith no matter where she was.

If she can't have Aerith, then she wants to be able to at least pretend she can have her.

Tifa doesn't know how to hold herself together. She can barely put on a front herself, so she doesn't know how everyone else wears their masks so well.

But she knows death. She has lived through the death of her mother _and_ her father, the death of some of her friends in Avalanche... she has been witness to too many sad, unhappy incidents that this shouldn't affect her as much as it does.

And yet, all she wants to do is go back to Aerith's church and lay there in the flowers so she can have some part of Aerith back, even if it took forever. But that's not possible, and she knows it.

You have to move on at some point, or at least reach a point of healing, and even if so many people you love and care about are ripped away from you unfairly, you have to keep going.

...She tells this to Cloud, the night of the incident.

It's more for herself than it is for him, but it's enough to get him to make a decision, and so, onward they march.

But she still cries, when everyone is asleep, lets her tears stain the earth like the blood of her best friend. Of a girl she loved who won't come back. Who won't be able to comfort her, who won't talk to her, who won't... be with her anymore.

The only place she will see her is in her dreams.

("But if you listen close to the mountain," her dad told her, "you can hear the voice of your mom. Or anyone else who's not in your life anymore." And even when she isn't near any mountains, Tifa listens on - for a glimpse of a sweet laugh, a laugh like bells and vanilla and flowers, and a voice that will know just how to comfort her when she doesn't know how to do it herself.)


End file.
